Just received my HD800 :) Anybody else using the HD800 with a Lavry DA10 / DA11? - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shahrose 

 

Upgrade your source...the HD800 won't magically make a bad signal sound good.
 

Well.. I've found the HD800 to not be very source sensitive / transparent in that sense. (as have other said on this forum, this should have given me a red flag at the time but I apparently chose not to see it back then)

I have a Lavry DA10 which I find a very good source that I'm very happy with.

But my initial impression of the HD800 is the same as Beamthegreat his impression.

Plenty of bass and a warm sound signature, and was expecting more too. I'll add to that very recessed mids, blurry focus, and a certain non enjoyment of the music.

This non enjoyment of the music didn't come from "transparancy" or anything like that to me. It came from a constant color the HD800 imposed on all music. And didn't find the HD800 very transparent at all (and again I didn't hear how good my DA10 source is etc).

And while there's enough bass, I didn't like the quality of the bass. It's a somewhat detached slow oomph which is not very dynamic or natural, it reminded me a lot of the HD650 bass (though that one was worse).

Now especially compared to the K1000.. That one impressed me! It is everything the HD800 was promised to be but wasn't to my ears.

The K1000 bass is waay better than the HD800 bass, the K1000 bass is like in real life, dynamic, has real impact and integrates with the rest of the spectrum perfectly. K1000 mids waay better and not recessed. Imaging and soundstage and focus all perfect, unlike the HD800.

And I could hear my DA10 and how good it is on the K1000 better than I ever heard before.

Can also hear how badly recorded some songs are with the K1000, some songs are unlistenable (especially some old distorted vinyl rips became unlistenable). The HD800 on the other hand tries to make everything sound "hi-fi" and listenable to me, but fail in that sense.

Like I said earlyer, I still can't believe some people think the HD800 and K1000 are on the same level and it's simply a case of preference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shahrose 

Everything you just said is literally the opposite of my experience. HD800 Slow bass? K1000 bass like real life? HD800 sound like the HD650? HD800 blurry, recessed mids with bad dynamics? I think you need to try the 800s out of a different setup. I suspect though, that you may not fancy the Senn sound.

Well, part of why I had such a strong anti HD800 reaction is because I waited on buying them for a long time and had big expectations.

I though it would be a departure from the Sennheiser sound (which indeed I don't like as it's a very colored untransparent sound to my ears).

I was just really dissapointed when I got it. And i had expected a neutral, frequency flat, natural, transparent sound. And the HD800 is anything but.

I went on to search for HD800 out of the Lavry DA10 headphone amp, and found that it should sound perfectly OK. And the thing I'm hearing is not an amp thing I could tell, it's simply how the HD800 sounds. Also the K1000 which is harder to drive sounds amazing out of the DA10 headphone out.

But it's true what you say. I don't fancy the Senn sound. But it does say something that the HD800 has a strong sound, it's not a chameleon, it's a colored phone that does the "hifi stereo in a room" type of sound / eq-ing. It allmost sounds to me like they put a microchip in the HD800 with some processing.

And yes, the HD800 does remind me a lot of the HD650 in the bass and some other parts of the sound. The lower trebble beeing the biggest departure from the HD650, which gives the sound a different balance than the HD650. Sure almost everything (but not all) on the HD800 is an improvement over the HD650, but still I can really still hear the HD650 "sound" in it.
 

Ah just to balance my statements as I'm speaking so badly about the HD800.

The HD800 did sound good to me! Just not living up to my expectations, and not sounding like 900 euro to me (which I paid).

If it was a 300-400 euro headphone I would have thought it was a great headphone.

Hi Shamu,

Quote:

Originally Posted by shamu144 

To the OP, I have nothing but the highest praise for the DA11&DT48 combo (used out of the HP out). I also use the HiFace as transport. Great minimalist system, and no need to worry about another piece of gear (power amp) in your system that will most likely add its own signature to the whole.

 

Unfortunately, I have not heard any of the top tier dynamic headphones, but many there have http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/418746/the-beyerdynamic-dt48-arrives.  And it hold its own compared to K1000/HD800/etc... beeing even superior in some areas. Probably worth checking out, considering your set up and expectations.
 

 

Thanks for you recomendation.

I must admit that I did not take it serious at first.

But have been doing some reading up on the DT48, and I think I'll give it a try.

I'm going with speakers for my main system now and not expecting too much anymore from a headphone because I can't mix on it as well as on speakers.

But if the DT48 is indeed as good as a K1000 in the mids, with a similar naturalness and transparancy then I have to try :)

If I understand correctly the DT48 (DT48E 25ohm?) is like a K1000, only with small in the head soundstage and cut off bass and trebble?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jax 

 

 

Man, my own perceptions of the HD800 could not be more different than yours.  I do not think they sound anything like the 650's or 600's - they do not have that thickness of the midrange that both those cans do, 650's more so.  Slow bass....sounding HiFi???!  No chance.  Not even remotely so. Not on my amp.  Source sensitive in that they are very revealing and detailed, sure.  Very amp-sensitive in that they do need some power behind them to sing. Perhaps this could be part of your problem using the opamp in the Lavry?  I would not consider them colored as I would the 600's and 650's.  If anything they can sound a bit airy and some might consider that thin or light for that reason.  Personally it works for me and the music I prefer.  They also soundstage like few other cans I've heard.  I have not listened to the K1000's you prefer though.  I definitely do not think HD800's are rock headphones - if I listened to a whole lot of rock I'd choose something else like T1's.  I don't listen to much rock at all, needless to say.  From your impressions I would say we are listening to entirely different headphones.  Have you tried them on a good headphone amp?

 

Edit: I just read over the rest of the thread.  How long did you allow the HD800's to break-in before you made the impressions you've shared?  It looks like you had 2 hours on them on 5/28 and you returned them on 5/31, only 3 days after getting them.  Of all the things that require some break-in, dynamic drivers on speakers and headphones most definitely improve over initial use.  I don't know what the consensus is for HD800's but I'd guess more than 72 hours would be prudent. 

Well I'm not alone in thinking they have some similarities in some parts of the sound to the HD650.

I've read other comments that the HD800 do have the "Sennheiser sound" in some way.

I really stand behind my impression that the HD800 is not very source sensitive, more source sensitive than the HD650 yes, but that's not saying much in my book.

I consider something like the K701 to be more source sensitive / transparent than the HD800. And the transparancy of the K1000 is on a whole different level far beyond the K701 and HD800 to me.

The bass of the HD800 is not realistic to my ears. It doesn't have the integration with the mids and a realistic impact to me.

It sounds like a pleasant boom boom to me with a warm refined color, but it imposes this color on all the bass things I played through them, not something I want. Again very very different from the K1000 which to my ears has a perfectly integrated bass which sounds different depending on the song and has an impact, dynamics, naturalness and speed/control/decayon another level. HD800 bass sounds like hi-fi bass to me.

I can't quite understand people saying the HD800 has too little bass, it has a good amount of bass, for me for sure not too little (but also not too much like the HD650).

What also made the HD800 hi-fi sounding to me was that the mids are recessed to me in comparison to the bass and the lower trebble. I mean purely in level, not that voices are far back in the soundfield or anything like that (they aren't), but the level of the mids is lower from flat in comparison to the bass and the lower trebble. The higher trebble is also lower in volume compared to the bass and the lower trebble.

Perhaps my mind makes a slightly different perspective of things, I've read reviews that say the lower trebble is too high in volume with a 6db bump and that they found this the most disturbing part of the HD800. I heard not the lower trebble as bumped, but the mids and high trebble as notched.. I guess that's thesame thing from the opposite perspective.

Focus is not precise but a little bit blurry, I found this disturbing, and one more reason to make it hi-fi sounding to me.

And then there was something else which I couldn't put my finger on.

Perhaps it was simply the combination of the things I described above, perhaps it was something else, but there was something "missing" in the sound.

My mother said this as the first thing when she put on the headphones, something is missing. And adviced me not to keep them (to which I didn't agree yet at that point as I sooo wanted to love them)

She did not say any such thing when listening to the K1000, on the contrary she was very impressed (though still prefered speakers as a more pleasant way of listening to music, even though the K1000 technically made a better sound)

As for the Lavry headphone amp.

It's not an opamp, it's a discrete quality and neutral amp.

It drives my K1000 fine, drives the HD600 my little brother owns fine, and I've read reports on head-fi that it drives the HD800 fine (compared to an SPL phonitor the Lavry headamp was very slightly warmer and very slightly less detailed with the HD800)

Furthermore, I've owned dedicated headphone amps in the past, and they would not solve the above issues I had, though I agree it can be better than the DA10 headphone amp offcourse I'm familiar enough with it's sound (especially now after hearing the K1000 with it). Better headphone amp would probably give me more realistic dynamics and more authority, and less distortion, which would be great but it wouldn't fix the above issues I had with the HD800.

About breakin.. well even if I gave that the benefit of the doubt.. it's described as giving the HD800 a more relaxed sound..

Not fixing my issues.

Please compare the HD800 with a K1000 yourself and then think again if you can call the HD800 natural or transparent etc.

And one last thing. With the K1000 I had a few tears rolling with some music. Yet with some other music I couldn't listen to it as the flaws were too obvious (for instance Voyager gold record - murmurs of earth - Valya Balka song, very old vinyl record, bright recorded song with lots of distortion on the song, and then ripped from vinyl with some distortion, the K1000 shows all the flaws so well you can't enjoy the music anymore).

With the HD800 sure i hear the flaws, but it imposes it's color/eq curves on the song which doesn't make it too bad anymore. But again, the other side is that it won't let me hear the truly great music. Listening to Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi (second recording) on the K1000 is amazing, magic, so involving.

The HD800 can't do it, it's own strong color is so much in the way and the sound never becomes real.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jax 

 

 

 

Well, what's important is that you found something that will bring tears to your eyes and that's outstanding!  I'll definitely look to audition a pair if I happen upon one at a meet.  Ironically there's someone currently wanting to trade their pair of K1000's for HD800's or T1's.  Not a risk I'm willing to take. 

 

Thanks for the clarification on the amp in the Lavry. 

 

What types of music do you listen to primarily to form these impressions?  Just curious because they're so different from my own.

 

Reading your impressions I'd still say my own impressions are a world away from what yours are, and gets further away with each detail you've added (focus not precise????! Blurry?....wow).  To each their own. 
 

Well I must admit it's a bit strange indeed that I have not found a similar review to mine of the HD800 before.

I've read reviews before that didn't like the HD800 very much compared to its price, and I can understand them better now, but I've never read things like colored and untransparent before.

Also don't understand the bass light reviews.. I was almost starting to think that I had a HD800 that deviates from the norm (didn't receive the frequency graph yet, though I did register them and requested it. Maybe it'll still arrive..) or just very maybe they changed the HD800 a little as I had a very late serial number (hadn't seen such a high serial HD800 on here before)

I listened to a variety of music. Classical (concerts from Beethoven and others, and things like solo violin from Bach), jazz (many classics like Jazz at the Pawnshop, Getz/Gilberto, also Hancock - River the Joni Letters, HDtracks things) and electronic (Aphex twin / AFX / The Tuss, Boards of Canada, Plastikman etc), and various audio demonstration disks, also Chesky things like The Worlds Greatest Audiophile Vocal Recordings in 24bit 96khz.

Btw depending on the condition and bass light/bass heavy version of the K1000, I understand the trade on a price level atleast as the K1000 goes for slightly less used than the HD800. Would be a safe try-out. Don't know anything about the T1 though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shahrose 

The HD800s aren't bassy, the K1000s just have rolled off bass.

Yes I know the K1000 has rolled off bass below a certain frequency (don't know exactly which frequency, 40-50hz? But untill that it's flat. Not bothering me at all.

I'm not calling the HD800 a bass phone or anything, just that it's not lacking any bass volume to me at all.

But one bass is not another bass, and the bass quality is very different between HD800 and K1000, no matter the rolloff the K1000 has. They do bass in a very different way, where K1000 bass sounds like real bass to me. When I hear a plucked double bass playing from for instance some Chesky test tracks the K1000 does it "right" to my ears, and the HD800 does not it sounds "fake" like a hifi system to me in some way.